Co-producing sociotechnical solutions in difficult times: the art of governing nuclear wastes in France

Radioactive wastes and their management are posing pressing political and epistemic issues to modern societies such as, for instance, how shall we design sociotechnical solutions to deal with an object with a half-life of more than 100.000 years? This paper’s starting point is the so-called “participatory turn” in the nuclear waste management (NWM) in France, when tensions appeared concerning claims of epistemic authority of national nuclear agencies. In 1990, in the aftermath of violent contestations and citizen mobilization in four Departments, the then Prime Minister of France, Michel Rocard, decided to impose a one-year moratorium on the research conducted by the national nuclear waste management organization (ANDRA). A not so well-known parliamentary technology assessment (PTA) institution, OPECST (the French Office Parlementaire d’Evaluation des Choix Scientifiques et Technologiques), was called to the rescue to clear up a difficult situation and to restore trust between state and scientific agencies and a critical population. We find that OPECST played a surprisingly central role in defining the French NWM program.